During a telephone call, a telephone user uses a telephone to communicate with other users, oftentimes in an open or noisy environment, such as inside a cubicle, a kitchen, a coffee house, a conference room, a shopping mall, an airport, a library or a lobby. A telephone call may be a two-party or a multiple-party call.
A telephone call may be used for personal communication, such as two friends engaging in a conversation, a daughter talking to her grandpa, a nephew asking his aunt for a secret recipe, a newly wedded couple inviting their parents for a Thanksgiving gathering, a customer enquiring a business for business hours and direction, a guest making a dinner reservation with a restaurant, or a subscriber making an request with a cable company for the repair of her cable connection.
For personal communication, depending on the information being exchanged during the call, it may be desirable to protect the privacy of the telephone users so that the information exchanged is not intelligible to unintended audience.
A telephone call may also be used for business or in business-to-business communication, such as a contractor talking to a city manager about a bid for a project, a client ordering goods from a supplier, an insurance adjustor taking damage assessment from a hurricane stricken home owner, a nurse discussing a medical condition with a patient, a stock broker giving financial advice to a client, a lawyer speaking to a client on sensitive legal strategy, a product distributor asking an equipment vendor for technical information, a health clinic nurse delivering a appointment confirmation to a patient, or a credit card company representative alerting a customer of unusual activity on a credit card account.
A telephone call may also be used for collaboration within a business, such as a traveling salesman asking for updated pricing information from her peer, a customer service manager requesting product integration information from a project manager, two engineers discussing an application programming interface, a emergency room nurse seeking critical advice from a doctor, or several executives engaging in a conference call on company financial matters.
For business communication, the information being exchanged may be critical to the operation of the business or businesses involved. It therefore may be essential to protect the privacy of the telephone users so that the information exchanged is not intelligible to unintended audience.
The importance of protecting the privacy for business communication becomes increasingly important with the escalating cost of travel, the proliferation of service outsourcing, and international business partnership as a result of globalization.
The above examples demonstrate a need to provide audio privacy for a user during a telephone call.